Hello, my name is NattiKay, and welcome to my blog! Before you follow, there’s a thing you should know about how I do fandom.
Basically, it can take one of two forms. The first is casual fandoms—this includes various media I enjoy and will like/reblog posts about, maybe even doodle for on rare occasions. I can have several of these simultaneously.
But the second—and much more visible—is a “main” fandom, which you can also call hyperfixation or special interest if you wish. I only have one of these at a time, it lasts for years, and it pretty much takes over my life and blog during that time. Once every few years or so my brain will latch on to a new “main” fandom—I don’t know what triggers it to switch, and I have zero control over when it happens or to what.
My current special-interest fandom is Avatar (James Cameron/blue people), with a bonus mini-fixation on the Na'vi language. My favorite characters are the Sully family and much of my art focuses on them right now.
Previous special-interest fandoms that I’ve had during my time on tumblr are, in descending order of recency:
Trollhunters/Tales of Arcadia
Miraculous Ladybug
Inuyasha
I make this distinction to say that if you recently found this blog through fanart of one of these previous fixations and followed hoping for more, I’m sorry to say you’re going to be disappointed.
When my fixation switches, I loose interest in actively creating content for the previous fandom because all my energy gets dedicated to the new one. This does not at all mean that I no longer like the previous ones—I may still reblog posts about them here and there—just that I no longer have the inspiration to be producing a bunch of art/comics/etc for them the way I used to. They’ve essentially moved from main fandom to casual fandoms. Yes, this will happen one day for my current fixation too, though I have no way of predicting when.
I will not be offended if you follow me during one fixation and then unfollow when it switches. I will also not be offended if you recently found this blog through my old content from previous fandoms and then choose not to follow because of this post: like I said, if you follow hoping for new art from those, you’re gonna be let down 😅
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got hit with the echo+sora brainrot so i am once more rambling in your askbox about it. because reasons.
anywho i think there is something truly saddening about echo's struggles to make peace within herself and how she truly finds it hard to find that peace when she is so certain that if the truth about her origins were to be revealed to the world, much less to *sora*, everything she achieved, everything she worked for, all of which matters to her most, will crumble away in a moment's notice.
but the fear of losing all your life's work is none compared to the fear of losing sora. the feeling of poison that settled itself within themselves and between each other out of fear and tragedy of what had happened to them is familiar. echo's resemblance to dusknoir was already enough to set the two off because of how much it had all hurt to see someone you love and yourself turn into a mockery and a splitting image of someone who had pretended to care yet showed he never did at all, but this poison is louder. it hurts to bare, to carry, and to have none but yourself to be its sole holder.
but this poison, this feeling of heartache is different. because whereas the previous pain was something both of them felt, sora was lucky enough to not have known the truth about the person who she cares for so dearly.
echo knows that she used to be darkrai. and it haunts her to have known that her previous incarnation was so *cruel*, all for the sake of it just feeling right. wishing to engulf an entire world in darkness, solely for whatever desire she used to have.
and for how much she knows, how much she will hammer it into her own head that she is *not* like that anymore, that she looks at her past with sneer and disgust and that she will not be the barer of evil anymore, it will not matter in the slightest when she will have to look at sora if she were to ever find out.
how afraid, angry and dejected she would look when finding out, and how she will go on the defense/offense because of how much this will overwhelm her.
because when echo looks at her own shadow, she sees herself for what she is. she knows what she is, be it out of shame or guilt.
but when sora will look at it, she will see a tall, contorting and menacing shadow, towering over with a bright cyan eye doing nothing but looking at her, as if tempting her to make the next move.
and she defends herself. from someone she knows will not harm her. she raises her arms up in self defense from a hand that would never hurt her more than the world has already did.
she knows echo will not hurt her. and thats why she is afraid.
Oh my oh my OH MY, Sinnoh!!! YES YES YES!
HOW!!! IN THE WORLD!!! Are you so good at crawling into my head and creating these vivid analysis/snippets on my OCs??? I've barely shared ANY information about Echo and Sora because I've been wanting to hoard most of my stuff for when my fic is finally finished... but... I think you've broken my resolve a bit, if I'm entirely honest.
You know what? I'm so inspired by your accuracy and eagerness to talk about my girls that I'm gonna forgo my crippling anxiety regarding my writing skills and instead post a snippet of my WIP fic here as a treat for you. A teaser, if you will. Since I have no idea when the fic in question will actually be done and ready (or when I will be satisfied with it, cause the thing is currently 36,000 words and still slowly climbing). And now you've got me eager to share SOMETHING of my fic with you and anyone that might want to take a peek at it.
Please enjoy this conversation between Dusknoir and Echo. The topic deals a lot with what you'd described up above!! c:
[Note: this is an unedited part of my fic because I am still in the process of writing and it may change in the future, so please be gentle w/ me but I'd love to read any thoughts/comments that pop up while reading!! pls send asks or replies or anything really cause I love you guys]
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“I’m going to tell you something now, and you are going to listen.” Echo commands with a sharp bite in her voice that Dusknoir cannot fathom ignoring. He pauses and then offers a slow nod, waiting, wondering what she could possibly desire to tell him at a time like this, of all things.
Minutes pass as Echo remains rooted in place, still as her own shadow, and her eyes dart around as she stares at the patches of dry grass and sand beneath her paws. Her claws clench and unclench, digging into the earth like daggers as the wind of the forest (it’s trees so close, just behind them, a looming sort of presence that could engulf them whole) whistles through the surrounding branches, carrying stray leaves of many bright greens through the chilling breeze. Dusknoir watches them dance around Echo, twirling, floating down, down, down… but it’s quiet, too quiet, and Dusknoir feels a shiver pass through him when Echo’s voice finally rings out through the silence.
"When I evolved, Sora was petrified," She says, nearly a whisper, an admission that melts away her confidence and appears to bring her a flood of both shame and regret. Her face twists up then, strangely, like she’d felt a twinge of pain from somewhere deep inside the very fabric of her own soul and was unable to quell it. "She couldn’t even bring herself to look at me most days. At first, my appearance… well, it reminded her too much of you. And eventually of someone I used to be.”
Someone I used to be. At that, Dusknoir’s immediate reaction is to recall Echo’s previous life as a human, as the miserable shell of a creature surviving alongside Grovyle that he’d relentlessly hunted in the dark future. A human made of contempt and anger and apathy, who never smiled or laughed or cried or screamed like the old legends said humans would-- an entity that simply existed rather than lived. An echo of a life long dead and buried. But, judging by her tone, by her voice, by some uneasy intuition itching in the back of his mind like a swarm of pestilent Ninjask… he knows that she means something else entirely. Something that she isn’t willing to share. And frankly, that concept utterly terrifies him.
Someone I used to be. Dusknoir wants to speak, to break his own silence, wants to ask the myriad of questions bubbling up in his throat because this isn't the first time she's hinted at another life beyond being human, but those questions die at the source like a flame doused in water. And always the coward, coward, coward, instead he takes the easy way out by doing nothing at all. Whether Echo notices his surge of inner conflict or not-- the nervous wring of his hands and the tremble in his spine that he cannot control under her gaze-- she does not react.
“I’d take a step and Sora would flinch away.” Echo confesses, her markings flickering with light before going dark and dead, as if her body wished to snuff them out entirely, a deep seated rejection, a self-loathing so strong that Dusknoir cannot help but recognize it and empathize, and his heart aches, “It took ages for her to stop shaking when I’d speak. To stop looking at me like-- like I was going to…”
Echo grimaces like she’s enduring waves of grueling torture and doesn’t finish that string of thought, but it’s not hard to make an educated guess on what went unsaid. Like I was going to betray her. Hurt her. Break her heart. She’s been through so much already and I couldn’t bear to be another influence in the history of her suffering. I hate myself because of how I made her feel. When her eyes went wide in fear and through them I could see myself staring back like some sort of burden, some sort of curse.
“I am not my past.” Proud and true, Echo straightens up and holds her head high, a spark igniting in her eyes, a glint of determination, a will to keep going and going despite such circumstances and strife, despite this horrid, unspeakable past that haunts her so, “And I am definitely not you. It’s taken a while, but I know that much now. I’ve accepted it.”
I am not my past. And I am definitely not you.
A sigh, a breath, and Echo glances at him with a certain sorrow that cannot be described, a sorrow that lingers even through the veil of her tenacity, "But no matter how I feel, no matter my conviction, my shadows still find ways through the cracks. Every time I think I'm getting a grip and that I might finally understand myself… I change all over again." She admits, sounding more angry and tired than defeated now-- like a mirror of her old self, her human self that had clawed and damned and cursed him, despised him more than anything. "I hate it. I hate that I never truly know who I am. That I have to learn about my past through stories others tell me, or through fragments of twisted, broken memories that I wouldn't wish on anyone. Through conflict and pain and… and..."
"Echo," Dusknoir murmurs her name softly, an offering, a potential escape if only she would wish to drop the subject and forget this conversation had ever happened-- if she'd overstepped and needed an excuse to back out, a diversion, an understanding. And briefly, Dusknoir wonders why she is opening up about this particular information, why she would delve into something so vulnerable, so personal. Why she would bring up this hurtful history when it obviously brings her great discomfort.
And then, he gets an answer.
“You’re lucky, Dusknoir." There it is, that wildfire burning in her eyes again. A spark that’s new and bold and startling. But lucky? No, never. He'd have to disagree, accounting the mountain of evidence that was his life and regrettable deeds.
"You already know exactly who you are and what you’ve done, and most importantly why. You have more than a tattered picture of yourself that reflects broken answers. And you can change with that knowledge. I see you trying.” She tells him, searching, looking for something so deeply and Dusknoir wishes he knew what it could be so that he could give it to her, because he would, he would gladly give it to her without a second thought if it meant they could be close again. But he isn’t a fool, and he’s wise enough to know they’ll never be like they were before. “And if somehow I could change, even as half-assed as I have. Well, then what’s your excuse?”
You can do it, say her unspoken words, I believe in you.
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‘normal’ denji isn't denji anymore
okay for some reason i have a lot of thoughts about this damn crow because it just seemed so random at first. but it struck me as interesting while I was reading the chapter that the crow is paralleled with pochita here, with both of them on their backs and denji looking back towards them. the comparison was really just making me about how stepping on and killing a crow/animal is something denji neverrr would have done before, and the implications of this moment given some of the things we know about denji and his values.
due to the fact that he's very animal coded himself (specifically dog coded of course), denji has a connection/ respect for most animals as non ‘moral’ beings who aren't looking to hurt him in the way humans and devils are. i think there's also an element of him relating to other beings that are looked down on, as he's been looked down on pretty much his whole life. he would definitely feel guilty to kill an animal (or really anyone/thing that wasn't trying to hurt him) in the earlier chapters of part 1.
following that, pochita was the most important thing in the world to him & their relationship informs denji’s philosophies and moralities. to that end, he viewed pochita as a pet but also as an equal; they were in it together in denji’s eyes. which establishes denji’s unwillingness to look down on a “pet” and similarly, other animals, just because they aren't human, or from the opposite side, his willingness to consider animals or other 'lesser' species as equally important.
later on, we see denji come to understand power better because of her relationship with meowy, which he sees as resembling his relationship with pochita. the fact that she would do anything for this cat makes him see her in a better, more empathetic light, because that's a trait he has himself and values greatly.
and of course, we cant forget the panel where he chooses to save the cat instead of multiple people, which can be read in many different ways, but for my purpose specifically, it means that denji sees value in saving the cat, even over human lives. this once again makes clear his willingness to consider 'lesser' species as important. saving the cat is an equally valid choice in that scenario, because it's still a life to save.
i’m sure there are other instances i’m forgetting, but the key thing is that all of those instances made him the version of denji that was able to be chainsaw man. his own doglike nature, his connection with pochita because of their mutually respectful relationship despite being different species, his connection with power through animals and his choice to save the cat were all distinctly traits that denji valued when he was still able to be chainsaw man. and so, we turn back to ch 150.
currently, denji is so caught up in trying to return to his normal life and justifying his happiness that he accidentally kills an animal. in this moment, he has become so far removed from many of the things that he valued, from many of the things that made him him. very similarly, chasing his dream of a normal life has forced him to give up being chainsaw man - another thing that makes denji distinctly himself, and something that he values very much.
so, i see killing the crow as a moment that snaps denji out of his desire for a normal life because there is a direct cost, a direct violence now that is attached to following this desire. he has trampled on another being while chasing his goal, which is exactly what others have done to him in the past when he was considered a "lesser" being. he could bear to sacrifice things himself for the sake of nayuta and his newfound normalcy, but in that moment, he has gone so against his values that he held in part one that he can’t look past it anymore. his dream isn't just affecting himself anymore, unlike all of his previous dreams. and so he reflects, and with the help of his inner-conciousness-pochita, he realizes that it’s time for a new dream. or perhaps it's just time to return to a life that was never a dream in the first place.
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